After a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, we returned to our rooms to get ready for the morning's activity - paddle boarding and kayaking! After lugging all the equipment down to the beach, which strangely seemed like it was much, much further away than it had been earlier that morning (a paddle board is much heavier than it looks!), we navigated through the crowds and got them into the sea. Initial apprehension quickly dissolved and once we were out a little and away from the crowds swimming we had so much fun. The kayak was apparently difficult to 'steer' and standing up on a paddle board on the rough sea was harder than I'd imagined; we laughed so much as the kayak went off in the wrong direction and each time a wave knocked us off the paddle boards just as we had got our balance.
After a morning at sea we returned to the hotel for lunch and a rest on a beautiful Balinese bed by the pool with drinks in hand before the next adventure we had planned later that afternoon - a snorkel boat trip across the coast! This was the thing I was most looking forward to on the trip and I had been so disappointed when I arrived to be informed by several skippers that they were not taking bookings as the weather would not be good enough to go out. Fortunately the hotel's own boat was taking bookings and we were assured that the weather looked set to be perfect for Thursday - they were right!
We set off early afternoon and started by visiting a few of the nearby beaches and our skipper gave us lots of interesting information about the local area and the history. We then zipped along the bays before arrived at our first snorkelling point. Our skipper threw in a handful of fish food to draw out the fish and we jumped in, snorkel masks and underwater camera in hand. It was amazing to see so many fish and the diverse life on the ocean floor. I had never been snorkelling before so it was breathtaking and felt a little surreal swimming in the crystal clear water.
After about half an hour we got back on the boat and enjoyed more beautiful scenery and even went through a few caves, before mooring at our second snorkelling point. Here the skipper told us that you could swim through two of the dark caves to find tiny secluded beaches. I wasn't brave enough as the tunnels were dark and not much bigger than you, but my boyfriend did and liked it. I waited for him at the entrance and when he swam back out I spotted a little black and orange fish, hiding between the similar coloured seaweed in the rocks. I felt like the scuba diver from finding Nemo who takes photos of the fish - except my camera had run out of film so unfortunately I couldn't get a photo! When I got back I looked online and am fairly sure the fish was a type of Blenny.
Eventually I was too cold to stay in the water any longer so we got out and enjoyed a light lunch on the boat before taking a super speed journey back to our hotel. It was such a nice afternoon and felt like a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Unfortunately after I got back to the hotel and taken a shower, I began to feel 'land sickness' which is apparently something some experience after travelling, most commonly at sea. This meant our dinner plans were a little dashed and after a quick dinner I had to go straight back to my room for an early night.
The following morning we were due to depart at noon, so after breakfast we packed our cases and spent the last of our holiday relaxing by the pool. It was such a relaxing break and the hotel was lovely, but next time I would stay longer!
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